Demon's Grip
by Entwife Incognito
Summary: SPOILER ALERT! Tag to a scene in 702 "Graybar Hotel." If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read until after CBS airs it Sunday. Jane on his couch while Lisbon is in prison. One-shot. Angst. NO SEX. Disclaimer: I own nothing about The Mentalist.


Pale moonlight in still darkness isn't so cold as the ice blue light that floods the building in daytime. I can pretend it's our old CBI building. Same squishy couch that has cradled these bones for more than a decade. Lisbon's desk in front of me, a marker in the great dark sea. Like a fading footstep, the shadow of the room obscures any landmark, allowing me to create my illusion of old times. Old, but not better, tonight.

Reality is blurred in other ways, casting withered curses of familiar emotion. My present is different than my past, but they feel the same. I journey lost to both in the same velvet darkness. The same controlled terror possesses me. Everyone lost to me. Wife and child never to return. Avenging them didn't change that. But I tossed an evil from this world.

What a fool to think it could never happen again. Treacherous heart. Loving where it had no business. Threatening torture and madness if I didn't obey. Giving me torture and madness tonight in the vigil for my timeless love, locked away on a mission. Brave knight, she. For this interminable night, gone is gone.

I helped her make the passage. Wore the mask I wear best. "All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well." Julian's blind mantra for hope. I caressed my love so subtly she could not complain and I could not be held in violation of her need for secrecy. I cupped her hands, the ones I shackled, and joked with her until she smiled. And then I helped my lady on her way to fight dragons. Lost to me. She dares the eternal. She is the law's slaying arm.

So here I sit and tick like endless midnight. Unable to rest my bones, my finger through the ring of keys that include one to her house and one to her car. They jingle as I flip them incessantly, the weight in my hand reminding me of her love and trust, but sounding an alarm. I must not fail. Jingle. I cannot control the outcome. Jingle. I must not fail.

Face turned to exhausted puffy sponge hours ago. Eyes wide and ears attuned to the building that lives in the night air, echoing the fierce pounding of my heart. No lady knight to rescue me. Salva. Salva. Salva me, domine mi.

No answer. I am caught in the frozen wasteland between fight and flight, my blood boiling with conflicting chemicals, my brain with conflicting signals, my back steel-stiff, my muscles gelid. The chaos of years blights my night, blights my life again. All is one.

This will be our lives together? The crippling terror of unanswered night? I am doomed to disappoint her with base sniveling as I crack. Beg her to be safe with me. I can't feel safe with her. Not like this. How can I tell her it doesn't feel . . . right? I can't take her bright sword away. But if I don't stay her hand long enough to breathe these heresies . . . suffering silently will not count in my favor. So soon. So soon to be sadly wandering our separate ways with broken hearts and shattered souls. All my doing, again.

I am afraid, of anything I might do. Will it always be like this? The one's danger becomes a mire for two? Stupid question. How else could it be?

I brew a cup of tea in the break room and find that I have stirred it cold, biting my lip as I stand. My thoughts rattle like stones falling down stairs and take all traces with them. I don't know what I have been doing but it's my complaining knees that have called me back to reality. I am too old for this.

The tea is wet in my throat and it doesn't matter that it's cold. It replaces what I release in the men's room. I lay myself out like a corpse on my couch, close my eyes and join my hands at my chest.

The nightmares are so different. Like outer space, with voices. Everything is hidden in the void. My dead wife and child cheer from the sidelines as I call for her, searching. What passes for sleep must have been very restless because I wake with my jacket twisted tightly to the side and floating in a crumple at my waist. One shoe has fallen. My hair at the temples is stiff with salt, my eyes crusty. I need her arms around me, her cool hand to soothe me, her soft kisses that tell me everything will be okay. I need her possessive demands on my body.

The bullpen is cooling as the blue sun fills the interior. I hear the early hum of a new day and head to the gym for a long hot shower. My locker has everything I need. Wet heat scalds my blood to the surface, dragging it from where it retreated to shiver in the dark. The scent of clean revives me.

I get to visit Teresa today and I want to look my best, even if my suit is rumpled and I wear the same shirt, socks and underwear as yesterday. She'll look at me and know I am already going to seed without her. An old vest hangs on a hook in my locker, a distraction perhaps, something novel to look at. Maybe it will make me look a little dapper, enhancing my part as her slick con-man boyfriend. The wry smile in the mirror recognizes me.

People greet me as I make my way through the building. My stale croaking responses remind me I haven't uttered a word in sixteen hours. What would my life be without her? Would I lose my voice entirely?

I am afraid. And I will tell her. Soon.

Joy distracts me as I walk through the agency doors on my way to the car, her key in my hand. I will see her. I will see her in a matter of minutes. And though we be on opposite sides of a prison barrier, no other moment of my day will be happier or more important. I wear my old armor. I will be her squire for today.


End file.
